With course 5, we move to the dessert portion of the beer tasting. The beer of choice is Fuller’s ESB (Extra Special Bitter) out of the UK. It’s not as bitter as you would expect something that is called “Extra Special Bitter”, but it is very very malty, almost syrupy, with caramel and nutty.

With this beer, I decided to pair it with one of my favourite cakes to bake: the Chocolate Cake with Fleur De Sel Caramel Filling and roasted almonds. I have to admit I’m not a fan of dessert, usually because I don’t have a huge sweet tooth, and I prefer flavour over sweetness. However I LOVE making this cake. There are 4 layers of moist chocolate cake made with dutch pressed cocoa powder. Each layer is filled with a dark chocolate ganache, creamy salted caramel, and crushed salted almonds. Making it is a little bit like a construction project. Since the caramel filling tends to pour over the edge of the cake, you can build up a dam using the dark chocolate ganache frosting to keep it from going over. Also you can place the crushed almonds smartly to even out the cake if your cake layers aren’t cut evenly. The cake is pretty tall due to 8 total layers of components, so you want to make sure as you build it up, it’s as flat and as even as possible.